Just as their gender and race impacted how the suffragists went about campaigning for the vote, Wendy L Rouse argues in this book that their sexuality played its part as well – but that those both within and outside the movement downplayed its importance in a bid for greater acceptance by the general public.

Being well-acquainted with the American suffrage movement as learned about in elementary through high school, it was fascinating to become reacquainted with through an entirely new lens which I had not even had an inkling of before. Rouse lays out how the queer identities of many activists permeated the movement, whether it be in the tactics they used, what motivated their dedication to the cause, or how they built alliances with other suffragists both locally and across the Atlantic.

Equally fascinating to me was how many in the movement sought to hide it, engaging with ‘politics of respectability’ and conforming to the social standards of the time where they could to make the change they were demanding seem not as threatening – a tactic that is unfortunately still thought necessary today. While I was aware of this concept I had never known the name or dived deeper into the ideas surrounding it, so I enjoyed the

However, the writing was a little dry for my taste, even for a book released by a university press; while the subject was definitely discussed in an accessible manner, I found myself reading it in shorter stretches than I usually do. I also felt the author repeated herself on some points, furthering the feeling of reading a very long term paper sometimes.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book!

This was unfortunately a Did-Not-Finish (DNF) for me. The subject matter is so fascinating, and I really enjoy reading books on similar topics.

Unfortunately, I found the writing style of this book to be so dry it felt like a textbook, and my interest in the subject matter was not enough to carry me through. I hope others enjoy their reading, but this was just not done in a way I found enjoyable.

Fantastic book about the impact of the queer community on the women's suffrage movement. I love reading about American history but have not read too much on queer history, too. The author presents a well-researched account of the women who history often overlooks in its recollection of the women's' suffrage movement. Its a very academic book, published by an academic publisher to some readers may be put off by this. This is a fascinating read that adds to the scholastic evidence base of queer history.

This was a very informative read about the lesbian and trans community's impact on American history, especially women's history, and their unrecognized contributions to women's suffrage.

I personally had absolutely zero context for any of the events that are described in amazing, vivid and well-documented detail in this fascinating research piece, so this was extremely informative and enlightening. My only gripe was the sad reality of it being written as a thesis project, which I think will dissuade many readers who are looking for informative narratives that can keep their attention, without having to expand the mental energy for a multi-hundred-page academic piece.

Nevertheless, though it took a while, this was well worth it.

Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4605493691

This book is very interesting. It is not a light read. I am still working on the text. There are so many different areas to look into and explore. I found that I did not know much about the suffrage movement and its history. It is well worth your time to read. I have spent time looking into more of the history of the material that was not taught when I was in school.

Update:
It was also helpful to see how the early Suffragists organized and interacted. This is especially helpful with the recent events regarding the roll back of civil rights. I can see the marginalizing of different groups occurring again.

There were queer, lesbian, non-binary and trans suffragists in the United States. If this statement makes you ask, “how do you know?” then you must read this book.

“Because queer history often happens in the in-between places, it is necessary to look deeper and in less obvious locations.”

This is exactly what historian Wendy L. Rouse does in this book. Importantly, she doesn’t shy away from looking at how white suffragists silenced and erased queer, Black and Indigenous members of the suffrage movement. Rouse fills in the gaps of pre-existing “official” histories that have highlighted predominately white, heteronormative narratives of suffragists.

Suffragists broke windows, brawled with police, interrupted the President of the United States and went on hunger strike. Why have we been taught a buttoned up and white washed history of demure women in white dresses and gloves? I learned from reading this book that some of them wore men’s clothing and carried ropes dipped in tar and weighted with lead as a makeshift weapon.

Sadly, many problems around intersectionality and inclusivity are still relevant today. As women in the U.S. face continued threats to their rights and autonomy, we must take lessons from our history.

I received an advance digital copy of this book from NetGalley and New York University Press in exchange for an honest review.

This queer history book, written by Wendy L. Rouse, tells the stories of suffragists who were living secret lives behind closed doors. The book tells us how suffragettes who didn't fit in were excluded and ridiculed. But also how they fought back, creating their own families, safe spaces and rituals along the way. How they still helped the movement, even when getting hurt.
I learned a lot about suffragists and the struggles they went through, especially if they didn't fit into the white middle-class womanly picture other suffragists wanted to paint.
Even tho the book has it's central theme running through the chapters like a connecting thread, some sections lack good transitions and feel repetitiv.
The conclusions at the end of each chapter were honestly the best parts for me. And the worst part was the continuous refrence to Tinker as "Annie Tinker", while also pointing out that she liked to be refered to as "Dan", I think this should be respected.

This book is definitely very interesting, but also incredibly dense. The book read as more of a published paper in a journal rather than an actual book, which made it difficult to both get into and continue reading.

That being said, many of the topics addressed are important and often overlooked parts of queer history. I really enjoyed the depth in which each topic was discussed, and I learned a lot of key history.

An interesting but difficult read, 3/5 ⭐️

This is a much-needed book and I'm so glad to have read it! Queer people have been erased from so much of history and in this book Rouse uses primary sources such as letters and newspaper articles to prove that queer people not only existed during the suffrage era (late 1800s-early 1900s) but were instrumental in the movement.

Rouse points out that some of their erasure was done at the time by other suffragists who, in order to make the concept of female suffrage more palatable to a mainstream audience, played up the image of suffragists being straight, cis housewives. Later, as queer people continued to be marginalized, many of the suffragists talked about in this book were forgotten (or their queerness was) and many even destroyed the evidence of their queer relationships.

As I said, I'm very glad to have read this book and to learn about the role that queer people played in the women's suffrage movement. The only thing keeping it from being a five star review is that it reads more like a scholarly paper than I would like. However, the content still made it a very enjoyable read.

This is definitely a densely packed book, the information in here is fascinating but it is a slow read for sure.

I really enjoyed the conclusions at the end of ever chapter, Rouse did a great job of presenting a lot of information while keeping it mostly easy to understand, and circled back to the central idea often. I learned about a lot of people who were involved in the suffragette movement who I previously had no idea about, likely because of the queer and BIPOC erasure that happens so often in the teaching of history. This is definitely an important resource for anyone who wants a less whitewashed version of the history of voting rights.

The author did an amazing job of making this information accessible. Anyone interested in queer history will enjoy this.

I love history but as a queer woman it is typically difficult to find well research, through accounts of our stories. I have read a few books that taught me my history, such as Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers and The Girls, but they are few and far between.

This book gives an in-depth profile of the queer women who were the backbone of the fight for suffrage, particularly women of color who are so often overlooked in history. This book also looks at the way feminists worked hard to retain "feminine appeal" which led to separating themselves from the queer gender conforming individuals who were instrumental in pushing the movement forward.

I feel like this will be a book I go back to and reference for a long time.

In _Public Faces, Secret Lives_, Wendy Rouse provides an overview of the women's suffragist movement in late 19th century and early 20th century America through a queer lens. While there's some small overlap with other histories of the movement, Rouse adeptly analyzes and contextualizes the lives of activists. Even someone already familiar with the period will find this approach useful — from understanding the underlying tensions in the movement to why there just aren't records of some activists' lives. Rouse's writing also showcases how the backlash against inclusive movements follows similar arguments across time: claims that direct action is 'uncivilized', that change must be made incrementally, and that differences must be masked to gain acceptance.

This important hidden part of women's history is long overdue! In this meticulously researched history about the women's movement - specifically the Women's Suffrage Movement in the late 1800's/early 1900's, Rouse effectively uncovers and re-centers the narrative around the stories of women who were marginalized within the movement due to their queerness, and gender non-confirming behavior. I couldn't help but make many parallels to the Women's Movement of the 1970's where many of the public faces of that movement also wanted to present "politics of respectability." Women who were part of these movements were labeled "man-haters." Which brings me to today's women's movement -- the recent Women's Marches also came into criticism for suppressing and silencing other voices, particularly those of BIPOC individuals.

What I so appreciated about this book is that it gives visibility and power back to the incredible women in history who were willing to take risks and live their true lives, even though the costs could be severe. Thank you to the author for shining a light on this critical part of our history.

“Queer people always have and always will exist.”

Reading this I saw how much has changed women were subjected to strict conduct and dress code standards. Women that had short hair, or wore pants were considered “mannish” and women who “dressed like a man” were subjected to assault and arrest just for dressing, or wearing their hair in a way that was confortable to them. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, one of the women who did this, said “I don’t wear men’s clothes I wear my own clothes”. There was, unfortunately, a lot that I saw that is still the same. A lot of the arguments used against suffragists, and language used by anti suffragists is exactly the language and arguments still used today. It showed that the fights we’re being forced to having are nothing new. This is a constant fight against puritanical thinking and laws that didn’t have a place in society then, and don’t now. This book also featured lesser known queer suffragists and their fight against not only anti suffragists, but against their own people in the suffragist movement who eventually started pandering to mainstream society and standards by excluding and completely pushing out anyone who didn’t conform to their narrow cishet white standards. This left behind queer, and POC suffragists who were even more marginalized and in need of protection and reform. The people featured in this book showed that you can pass all the legislation you want, ostracize, and hate, but you can’t stop people from existing.

“By piecing together the remnants of their lives and their deaths, we resist the historical erasure of these stories of queer love.”

Release date: May, 24 2022

*a copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This was very educational, I definitely learned a lot. I'm not sure if it's super accessible to everyone though but I enjoyed reading this.

Title: Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement


Author: Dr. Wendy L. Rouse


Rating: 5 stars / 5 stars


Favorite Quote: "This book began with the simple premise that queer suffragists existed. There is an essential point to begin and end with because acknowledging the existence of queer suffragists also helps us to come to terms with the systematic erasure of their existence (or at least of their queerness) from the historical record . . . Because queer history often happens in the in-between places, it is necessary to look deeper and in less obvious locations.” Rouse, Wendy L. Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. NYU Press, 2022.


Review: Thank you to the publisher, NYU Press, and the NetGalley platform, for the free e-ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.


Growing up, I didn’t like history class. And in college, it wasn’t until my senior year that I started to realize that maybe the subject of history wasn’t what I despised, but rather the method by which I learned it. See, (and keep in mind, we’re a decade or so removed from much of my pre-college learning), most of what I got out of history classes in elementary school, middle school, and even high school, was white man did thing - wars - marginalized group kindly asked for rights and were immediately granted rights by their oppressors. Obviously, this is whitewashed history. Obviously this is sanitized history that ignores the pain, the violence, and the struggle that accompanies shifts in ideology. But it’s all that I was offered. And I hated it.


This book is what I wish I had when I was younger. This book, and books like it, that shows that history is not a (often white, often male, often cisgendered) monolith. This book presents what seems like a relatively comprehensive history of the women’s suffrage movement, in relation to its queer actors and the “queering” of the movement accomplished by its various actors. It covers a variety of subjects including: pushback from the mainstream movement against suffragists who did not conform to gender expectations, and how suffragists outside the mainstream impacted the domestic sphere, family dynamics and definitions, relationships between US suffragettes and suffragettes outside the US, public spaces (my favorite anecdote here was the repurposing of a home once used my male politicians), and death rituals and grieving.


Dr. Rouse supports her thesis that queer suffragists existed and that definace of gender and sexual norms helped shape the feminist movement, by providing countless examples of historical figures that fall within her definitions of queer activists. She also makes sure to provide examples of suffragists who also represented racial minorities and highlighted the ways in which discrimination based on race, sex, and gender all interacted.


I just keep coming back to the notion that its this type of book that would so inspire a greater interest in history - a book doesn’t just recognize the cisgendered white men of America’s history, but instead recognizes the vast assortment of identities and perspectives that shaped civil rights movements in America’s history and its present.


About that Quote: This quote (which is actually a combination of two lines from two separate pages) effectively summarizes Dr. Rouse’s thesis and her methodology. Queer acvtivists existed in the history of the feminist movement, much like they exist in the movement’s present. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look, since societal and personal pressures often drove these activists into shielding aspects of their identity from public view. And Dr. Rouse clearly knows where to look, because she’s crafted a compelling, thorough narrative of how the suffragist movement developed.


Public Faces, Secret Lives is coming out later this year! Will you be picking up a copy? Share your thoughts below!

Suffragette history has always been full of queer women in all aspects and stages of its evolution. However, these people were not always treated well or respected even among the very movement that they were working with.
The author organized this book into several different sections and talked about how being a queer person affected so many parts of the activism and life that these people were trying to lead.
The different aspects of life that the author discussed in regards to being queer included how they presented themselves to the public, how they decided to live, how they participated in the suffragette movement and how they mourned and also prepared for their death.
This book is really interesting and shows just how important queer people were to the suffragette movement in every part of its evolution even when they were not appreciated or recognized by the movement at large.

A new book focused on the roles that LGBTQ+ people played in the women's rights movement starting with some more known people like Dr. Mary Edwards Walker and delving into the lesser known members of the queer movement. This is a slightly academic treatment of the subject, but it is one of the first books about the topic so that is to be expected. Definitely adds to the scholarship of the suffrage movement that is needed in 2022.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review, but all opinions are my own.

I was given a copy of this book from Netgalley. This book is a great book that covers an couple of often overlooked people in the woman's suffrage movement. Specifically there are profiles of queer and queer women of color profiled in the book. As a gay man I know much more about the male gay rights movement so I think I might have added an extra star because I think its extra important to tell these stories before they are lost to us forever.

Thanks for netgalley and the publisher for giving an advance copy of this book. This book talks about hidden history of queer sufferagist . It was really great book. The book chapters follows a theme and categories which makes it easier to understand. This book not only commented about white queer folks but also POC queers folks too and the difference of struggles and benefits of each races. I had a great time reading this. Author is well researched on this topic. This book well definitely suitable for beginners read for queer history